Saturday, March 25, 2006
Beauty as a Burden
I saw this recent article:Object Lessons: A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Objectified Body Consciousness in Women
Journal article by Stacey L. Sinclair; Journal of Mental Health Counseling, Vol. 28, 2006
Part of the experience of being a woman, particularly in Western cultures, is being looked at and evaluated by others. Research findings indicate that women are gazed at more than men and that women are more likely to feel "looked at" in interpersonal gatherings (McKinley & Hyde, 1996; Nigro, Hill, Gelbein, & Clark, 1988). In addition, men direct more nonreciprocated gaze toward women than vice versa (Bente, Donaghy, & Suwelack, 1998; Mulac, Studley, Wiemann, & Bradac, 1987), and men's gazing is frequently accompanied by sexually evaluative remarks (Beam, 1974; Gardner, 1980; Henley, 1977). Increasingly, women's experiences of such scrutiny and sexualized appraisal are being explored as an important area of study. In particular, scholars from various disciplines have begun to examine Western culture's widespread practice of sexually objectifying women's bodies and have begun to explore the physical and psychological consequences associated with such objectification (Bordo, 1993; Calogero, 2004; Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997; Kaschak, 1992; McKinley & Hyde; Roberts & Gettman, 2004). What has emerged is a critique of U.S. culture's fixation on the female body and a recognition that women's bodies are inscribed with complex social, economic, and political meanings. Specifically, researchers and mental health professionals have located the female body as the site wherein judgment regarding body weight, shape, and attractiveness is waged (Fredrickson & Roberts; McKinley & Hyde).She remembered through the filmy distance of time that everyone always commented to her mother that she was a beautiful child, her fair skin clear and even, her body slim and her waist small. She had the kind of dark eyes that were old beyond her years, eyes that probed, not just skimming the surface as most other children's eyes did. For all their ordinary brownness, her eyes held one's attention. Her grandmother always spoke up when people praised her for her appearance. Her grandmother told her that beauty was only skin deep, and not to let it turn her head.
As she got older, she began to grow even prettier. In high school, she dated, but never dated athletes. In fact, she secretly looked down on them, thought they had a enlarged sense of entitlement. She found many of them to be aggressive and grabby. She preferred boys who could think and reciprocate, who could see into her soul as her girlfriends could. Those other boys always saw her long blonde hair, but never saw her, and when she quoted Plato or discussed world events, they look startled. Sometimes she did that just for the effect of seeing their eyes glaze over.
When she was 17, she was nominated for Homecoming Queen by one of the Basketball Captains who possibly had a crush on her. He never told her so, but the way he looked at her spoke volumes. When it was time to show up for assembly to announce the Homecoming nominees, all the other girls were dressed in their high school best, with matching shoes, their beautiful hair brushed and sprayed, their carefully placed purses.She came to the Beauty Queen assembly dressed in blue denim overalls and a red flannel shirt.
There was a collective gasp when she stood up in the darkened assembly room, when the spotlight found her. The other students thought it was an insult to their tradition that she did not make herself look the part. What was she thinking, they asked, as she turned and slowly smiled at them, looking frozen and distant. She didn't know it, but she made enemies that day particularly among the girls who wanted what she rejected.
She hated having the spotlight shine on her, picking her out from the crowd, feeling others look at her. They always looked, sizing up her body, her face, her worth. They insinuated themselves into her private space with their eyes. She forced herself to look back into that sea of faces. She felt frozen in time, felt time stop, felt nothing. “They do not see ME,” she thought, in her blank panic.
Others girls would have been happy with her looks, more than happy. Other pretty girls used their looks as cash to get what they wanted. She hated that too, the implied selling of oneself, the implication that she was of ornamental value.But she also felt conflicted. She was aware that her looks made her life easier in some ways, gave her entry to places where other, plainer girls weren’t invited, but she failed to summon up gratitude for what many considered a gift. Standing out made her feel vulnerable, and sometimes, more than once it made her feel that she was in danger. Sometimes men secretly tried to touch her, or own her, and she retreated, feeling pursued and harried, like a hunted bird.
Once, when she was 16, on vacation in Mexico City with her parents, she walked into a café to meet her parents for lunch. She was shopping in the city with her cousins and the four of them entered the restaurant together, laughing and chatting.
She instantly felt a shock run through her. She became aware of the room and how it shimmered and went into slow motion, felt the precise second when the humming conversation was suspended, and every man in the café turned around to stare at her. She felt her face burn, she felt her father’s pride that he had produced such a striking child. She saw her mother, too, and the sudden assessment in her eyes that her daughter was a child no longer. She wanted to bolt, but couldn't. That was the day she created the habit of getting smaller and smaller until she almost, but not quite disappeared.
And preoccupied as she was with her own fear, she never even noticed until later that the 3 girl cousins who were invisible in the brightness of her own light faded as quickly as she did into their own self-constructed silent background.
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